Working from home

The Coronavirus pandemic is perhaps a once-in-life-time thing, and seeing it unfold is both scary and intriguing. Everywhere people are being asked to stay at home, to not be in groups and to keep washing hands. A few companies have asked their employees to work from home. But a large number are still pushing it down to the wire, making the employees come to office for as long as they can manage without breaking any government mandate. It's sad how businesses think - the primary rule seems to be to make money without breaking any law. And for some employees to impress their bosses by showing up in times like these coz they somehow think it'll help them get some browny points. They probably don't realize that their actions can put a lot of innocent people and their families at risk. After all, this whole thing must have started with 1 person who must have got infected by whatever the cause was. And right at this moment, there are 237,446 confirmed & reported infected individuals worldwide of which 9784 have died as per the live updates here as on 20 Mar 2020 at 1.30 AM. And we are probably just getting started, and if what is being said all over is true, we are fast approaching the situation of a lockdown in India and everyone would be forced to adhere soon.

The increasingly globalized nature of business operations these days makes it especially complex to handle situations like these. While most office-goers can still be made to sit at home and work on their laptops provided the business requirements allow them to work from home networks, the majority of the roles in companies, which are sadly under-represented on active social media, are not in position to work from home. Nor is their risk being taken into account with equal seriousness, at least initially. The elite just want to stay away from them, but still want to keep having their stuff done seamlessly like always. But viruses don't value one life over another, and epidemics like these have a way of equalizing humans in their vulnerability, although not quite in how the infected are subsequently handled.

Coming to working from home, while it is the need of the hour and must indeed be the norm right now, I do have a somewhat mixed experience with working from home in normal times, and the points below are from that perspective only.

I almost fully worked from home the past 3 years and 50% of the time for 2.5 years before that, and in general, I found it extremely frustrating especially in the last 3 years - not only because I found working from home boring in itself, but more because the company I worked for abused employees to a ridiculous extent in return for the seeming "flexibility" offered. Although there are advantages of a fully work-from-home model, the disadvantages far outnumber if you are not disciplined enough and your organization is not respectful enough of you as a human being and of your time.

Let's look at some of the pros first:

1. Saving on commutation time - with the traffic and distances these days, it's stressful spending hours commuting to office and back home. The time lost in just moving oneself from one place to another feels like a stupid waste to me, especially in cities in Mumbai, where many people spend 2-3 hours commuting each day.
2. Being available at home - Now this has many advantages. For example people with small babies can look after them with some support. Or those needed at home due to any other reason like health issues of a family member, etc.
3. Unrestricted network - Workplaces tend to put a lot of restrictions on network access assuming that if they allow employees to open certain recreational sites, their productivity will go down. It's a false assumption which I can say based on my own years of experience and also from what I have observed in my colleagues and peers.
4. Behavioral freedom - Being at home allows you to dress the way you want, sit the way you want, loosen up, grow beard or whatever... fuck grooming and enjoy being yourself.

... which are outnumbered by the cons:

1. Abuse of working hours by companies - by offering this notional flexibility, companies, especially those that work round-the-clock in different time zones, start expecting that you can be available at any time. This can often lead to extremely long working hours daily, people losing sleep and being stressed all the time. Plus it hardly leaves any free time outside work.
2. Impact on mental / psychological health - confining oneself in a room without any social interactions causes a huge mental strain which is not realized immediately but it screws with your mind very deeply.
3. Impact on physical health - sitting at one place for long hours affects the health in many ways. In my previous company there were regular sessions to educate employees about the hazards of continuous sitting, equating it with smoking a certain number of cigarettes per hour. I found it extremely disgusting to hear those lectures, given the fact that the work culture and model followed by the company left no option for the employees but to sit for many many hours at stretch looking at their screens, hearing and some times talking. Cases of obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, joint pains, back pains, neck sprains, headaches, indigestion, etc. etc. are very common among this section of people.
4. Poor relationships / networking at work place - you tend to know people only by their voices, some times pictures and in some cases videos - live or recorded; there is only so much conversation you can have on official media like calls, chats, etc., also with the huge limitations on the nature of the conversations you could have. The perceptions and opinions you develop about people based on what you gather from all this tend to be inaccurate, which you sometimes discover when you meet them on occasions. It's hard to form really meaningful professional relationships in such a context.
5. Impact on learning and skills upgrade - In my experience, the most effective learning in a workplace is through face-to-face interactions and in-person collaborations on tasks.
6. Impact on family life - Long working hours, being glued to screen, being on conference calls all the time, screen sharing most of the time, tasks and deliverables being urgent and squeezed between calls - all this makes one always engaged and less available for the family in the true sense, although physically being in the same home.
7. Poor efficiency in team work - With everyone working remotely, you tend to sync up more often and for longer. Many a times half the guys on the call are not listening but are just present in the call, for the sake of it. Most of them are simply lost or dreaming, while a few manage to focus well enough on something else and get some work done. The latter might make it seem like it's more efficient to be on call rather than meetings in person, most attendees are lost even when they are sitting together in a conference room. And the degree is significantly lower as compared to conference calls. However, it's not something very specific to working from home, as conference calls are a reality even for people sitting in office.

As you can see, I am not a huge fan of working from home when all the company wants is to suck more out of its employees and not really make their lives better or increase their productivity.

The present case, however, is forced by the government on the companies that would otherwise not care. And it's best people stay at home for as long as the calamity recedes. I wish the world comes out of this pandemic soon, we don't lose any more lives and humanity stands tall like it always does.


Update - 20 Mar 2020 09.11 PM: The COVID-19 situation has worsened since I wrote the above. The Maharashtra government has announced commercial lockdown in Mumbai and Pune. So work-from-home or total shut-down is the mandate now for companies (except for a few like manufacturing units, etc.). Stay home and stay safe. Love you all.

Safe Travels!

For quite some time now, in fact for over 2 decades, I've been wanting to do something in life which would give me an incomparable high. Something, that I can not only call a profession but also a way of life. Over the years, I've often thought, and always at length and depth, about a few things that would qualify as pursuits towards such a goal for my life. I have decided now that I would let my life take a turn, may be many twists and turns, towards something exciting and decide its natural and meaningful course. Let's see where this takes me. I'm taking a risk, and I am shit scared... But I am also excited as I never was. I am perhaps taking a plunge into darkness. It may eventually turn out not so much a plunge, but rather a stupid hibernation, although I really hope it doesn't. In any case, I will always be glad I made a choice. And I am sure I'd emerge stronger and happier on the other side. May be there is no other side, but only a journey, and I know it will be fun and exciting. Safe travels!

1+1=3

They took my wife inside for the surgery. Our baby was going to arrive. The memory of the journey that led us to that moment was gradually fading away as our new family member was arriving. It would be a boy - an astrologer had told us. I only wanted the baby and my wife to be fine, and that our new life to begin on a happy note.

About 40 minutes later, I was called inside. I entered through the large door and walked in. A few steps into the hallway, a couple of doctors were chatting aloud. I interrupted and told them who I was. One of the doctors came forward and introduced himself. He had the same name as mine. He smiled and said it's a girl. She was born at 1.40 PM. I was overwhelmed with joy, but had to calm down my insides and focus as the doctor had more information to pass. He pointed towards his left, my right, where a smaaaaall baby was lying on a crib, draped loosely in a green cloth and crying out as loud as her littleness would allow her. 'That's her,' he said. Strange I hadn't noticed her till then in all the excitement.

Every baby is an angel, but ours was ours. She was perfect. I asked the doctor if everything was fine. He was very positive. He told me they did all the tests, and she was doing great. He took Shruti's file from me and quickly glanced through it. He didn't have any comments, I assumed it was all fine.

I was worried the cute little one was left alone crying. In a helpless tone, I said to the doctor - 'She's crying". He smiled and said "That's good. If she's crying, it means everything is fine. If she didn't cry right now, that would have been a problem'.

I took a picture of my little crying daughter, her first picture ever taken, when I saw her the first time. It was a magical moment. I was asked to leave and that the baby would then be made ready to be shifted to our room! Shruti was still going to be at the recovery room for a few hours until she was fully out from the effect of anesthesia.

I came out. My mother-in-law was waiting anxiously outside. I gave her the news and showed her the first pic of the little girl. She kissed the screen of my mobile phone and was overwhelmed with happiness. I made some calls and gave the news to other close family members.

I was asked to go to the reception and fill up some forms for the admission of the baby. It sounded funny at that time that the baby was being admitted as a new patient. But if you think about it, it's quite logical as it's a new person with her own identity. Filling up those forms soon after your child was born was a tedious task. I was all excited, yet hungry inside as we had not had lunch. A few fields in the form were interesting. One of them was age - I had to fill 0 there! Writing my own name against father's name was emotionally charging and overwhelming!

I got over the task as quickly as I could, and went back upstairs where my mother-in-law was still waiting outside the operating area. Swati, my wife's friend, had also arrived and they were both ecstatic watching the baby's first and only pic till then. I inquired about Shruti and requested for meeting her. Meanwhile, our baby was brought out in a small crib, to be shifted to our room. I let my mother-in-law and Swati go along, while I went inside to meet Shruti.

She was in the recovery room, semi-conscious. I went near the bed she was lying on. We looked at each other and smiled. I held her hand. Before we could say anything, our eyes said to each other - she has arrived, the daughter we were waiting for!

Hoping...

He'd often look out of the window and notice the blueness of the sky, and the occasional clouds. 'It's mid June already, and still no rains!,' he thought, as he continued to hear his boss's boss's boss, a short fat guy in his 50's, blabber tons of theoretical bullshit about making customers' interests the utmost priority and the driving force behind whatever they did. He met the guy once, along with the others in his team in Pune. The meeting was totally forgettable except for all the hassle it took to reach office. He got late for that meeting - which is supposed to be a big deal when it's with your boss's boss's boss. But he said to himself - what the fuck! I'm going to resign soon anyway. That was about 6 months back.

His resignation email was lying in drafts for over a year now, and in his mind for over 2 years now. Although all his previous jobs were shitty, this one was a few times shittier than the earlier ones. Or is it just that the grass is greener everywhere else? His motivation levels had never been this low. It was as if he was hurting his own position in the company, but he couldn't help it. He would deny taking up new work pretending to be busy or giving some shitty reason for as long as he could manage; and for what he was doing, he would only do the bare minimum, enough to get things moving and not be shouted at. And it was visible to everybody. He was like this disinterested burden on the company waiting to be kicked out some day, and until then earning his pay one day at a time. Some days were indeed happy and exciting - when he had the right kind of people and/or work to make him enjoy whatever he did. But that was rare.

Working days, generally, were endless hours of sitting in a corner at home and staring at the laptop screen. Work from home - which may be a blessing for some people, only made his life more lonely and boring. His colleagues were all names, sometimes images, and voices. He had his earphones permanently on - for calls on Skype. Email, chat, Excel, PowerPoint, names and voices - together they made the office he worked in. Inside that little box called the laptop, there existed all the pressure, targets, deadlines, stress, personalities, emotions, politics and lots of meaningless shit. And he was supposed to sit online all day and endure all that. He found it funny that the company often did sessions to educate employees on the harmful effects of sitting at the same place for hours - they said it's equivalent to smoking many cigarettes per day. It's like a pimp telling a prostitute that fucking strangers is bad, and yet demanding that she make more money, get more clients, make them happy knowing fully well that it cannot be done without fucking strangers.

Not that he liked surviving this way. He felt guilty each moment he spent without doing anything of any value. And each time he got his salary, it made him melt with shame because he knew he didn't deserve most of it. His mind was continuously trying to figure out what he wanted to do and then try to plan for it. And it's been doing that for the past 19 years, and yet it could never conclude on anything. What's my passion? He had started to lose hope of finding his true goal and the path that would lead him there. The future had started looking dark and even the present looked hazy. There was nothing to make him stand up every morning and go. Do I need a guru? Do I need a break? Am I over thinking? Why can't I just focus on my job and carry on until the search for my goal gets over? Is that possible? How are others able to do it? Why is my responsibility towards my family not motivating me enough? What's wrong with me? He understood deep down that a lot of others he knew had similar feelings inside. And he was sure it didn't pain others to the same degree as it did him, as it's very natural that not all are hurt equally bad nor are hurting equally bad.

He would often recall the lines by Harivanshrai Bacchan...

मदिरालय जाने को घर से चलता है पीनेवला,
'किस पथ से जाऊँ?' असमंजस में है वह भोलाभाला,
अलग-अलग पथ बतलाते सब पर मैं यह बतलाता हूँ -
'राह पकड़ तू एक चला चल, पा जाएगा मधुशाला।'

... but fails to feel hopeful and excited. It says take a path, any path, and go ahead - it'll take you to your destination of bliss. But he still fails to see meaning in the path he's walking on at the moment. He therefore decides to continue his search, hoping that something he's doing, or will do, will take him to where he needs to be to be happy. Hoping this walking on firm ground will some day elevate him enough to reach for the mysteries beyond the sky.

The call ended with the boss's boss's boss asking if anybody had questions. Nobody did, as usual. He glanced at the sky again, after quite some time actually - he was really lost in some world of thoughts. It got all cloudy in the meanwhile, and as he was disconnecting the call to head for his tea break at the nearby tapri, it started pouring. He loved rains!

Reality has limits, imagination has none

Mahhhennnndra Baaahubaleee… that’s me 😊. When I was small, I knew I was some kind of a miracle child. When I came out, I didn’t cry like other babies. They all cry in minor scales. I cried in ekdum sharp F-Sharp. That’s the same scale in which Sunny Deol cried mai nikla gaddi leke and Sunny Leone cries when she’s not faking it. Mosquitos miss the scale by half a key. All babies smiled for 10 minutes from the moment I was born, and everyone at Surya hospital knew that something significant had happened.

I grew up not quite liking where I was. Bilaspur was a small place for my huge thinking. I didn’t feel challenged enough killing mosquitos and catching dragon flies. An occasional snake didn’t excite me enough, as someone told me most of them didn’t have any venom. Then I watched Jurassic park one day, and instantly realized that’s where I wanted to be. I would often sit in the little pani ka tanki in the pichwada of our railway quarter, close my eyes and imagine sitting on the head of the largest dinosaur, holding its horns and riding it like a pony. It was pure joy. Closely matching in degree of joy to an occasional fart while I was inside water as a giant bubble rose up brushing my back.

I would flap my hands while in the tanki and pretend to swim. I was preparing myself to swim in the sea someday, as that’s where I could catch the whales and sharks. I would not tell anyone any of this. These were my secret goals – to go where nobody else dared to, to do what nobody else dared to.

I grew up to know that Jurassic Park was fiction, and dinosaurs didn’t exist any more. But I thought they meant it’s scientifically possible to make them like they did in the movie. I decided I’d learn to make them, so that I could kill them. So I wanted to study biology after 10^th, but they decided my IQ wasn’t high enough for learning science. I landed up in arts. I didn’t care what history, civics, economics or political science meant – how are they ‘arts’ anyway? I decided I wouldn’t lose sight of my goal.

Shah Rukh said if you want something deeply enough, the whole universe will help you get it. Sheela said she knew you wanted it but you were never gonna get it – Sheela ki jawaani. She was wrong, you needed to want it deeply enough. I was going to reach my secret goals. If reality had limits, my imagination had none.

It grew more and more interesting now. Riding dinosaurs started to seem like child’s play. I could make myself small enough to sit behind a butterfly and tickle its ears while it flew in the garden. Once a butterfly sneezed and the jhhatka threw me on a heap of cow dung. It didn’t taste like palak paneer like I had thought. I once ate a green chilli and bit a nasty dog on its tummy. It ran towards the honeycomb on the nearby tree, barked at the bees and they dropped some honey into its mouth. The dog never took panga with me again. I created a python in my mind, held its mouth while the tongue was out, and dipped the tongue into cheezy dip. She rolled her eyes, she wanted jalapeno dip instead. How dare she? I ate the chocolava cake all by myself, to punish her.  In my love for F-Sharp, I once took on myself the mission to fix the hum of mosquitos. They needed a messiah to elevate their scale to that of the enlightened ones. I turned myself to 3 millimeter long and held on to the tail of the biggest mosquito I could find at home. After flying for 10 minutes in random places, she started hovering around my dad’s ear. She started her hum in F. She went on for a minute, and I could not take it any longer. I jumped and held her neck and pressed the right node, and there she was doing F Sharp. My dad sensed something was unusual. He farted it out – no sound, no whistle, only gas. So boring. I said my byes to the mosquito and jumped into my dad’s shirt. His farts needed fixing.

Originally written by me at Pagdandi during the Pune Writers’ Group meetup on 26th May 2019. It’s based on one of the themes given on the spot – “An unemployed millennial chooses daring quests and giant slaying over yet another 9-5”.

Sun, moon and the twinkling stars

Aadya met him just a few days back. She wasn’t in love, she told herself. After all it was just a few meetings. And they can’t be called ‘dates’, right? ‘Arranged marriage is not about love’ her friend Riya would often tell her. ‘You have to be practical, find a guy that you can settle down with’. But Aadya could feel a heartbeat inside her that she never had before. She had earlier met 9 guys, but with Aakash, it was different. She wanted to meet him again and again. She enjoyed hearing his infectious voice, seeing his smile that would take her breath away, and most of all his eyes that wouldn’t stop gazing at hers. She was clearly attracted to him.

Riya had got married a year back, and was already expecting a baby. They had a house in the most posh locality of Pune. Her husband was the CEO of the most well-known start-up in Pune… a 40-under-40 sort of guy. She had no mother-in-law. There were 3 maids, 2 nannies and 2 drivers. Everything was taken care of. What more could she have asked for, Riya would often say during the once-in-a-week phone calls she had with Aadya.

Aadya had a gift. She could hear a voice and grasp the joy, pain and every emotion in it. She could look into an eye and notice the smallest tear hidden somewhere deep inside, and find the infectious trace of a little smile within. And even though Riya tried hard, she couldn’t hide what her voice gave away. Yet, Aadya never commented on it. But last week when they met, Aadya let her eyes talk to Riya’s and within moments, Riya was in tears. If there is beauty in pain, Riya personified it. Her lips had the dryness of a desert, her gray hair looked burnt – dead yet burnt many times over. Her eyes were screaming for help, yet the emptiness within was scary – as if it had accepted defeat, lost all hope of a better life. Her skin, which once was like a feather of the most precious and rare bird that existed only in heavens, was empty, dull and lifeless.

Aadya was sad to see her friend so much in pain. She was also scared of her own future. Was she making the right choice? She wasn’t marrying for love either, she thought. Then, what was she marrying him for? It was a question that was bothering her a lot, literally giving her sleepless nights. She was constantly in debate with herself – ‘Could it possibly be love? Or attraction? What is love, anyway? How does he feel about me? What if it is temporary – whatever it is?’ She knew he was genuine, his smile was genuine and his eyes didn’t lie. She admired his hesitant touch when he shook her hand. She admired the nervous twinkle in his eyes when he tried to figure out whether she liked the dish he ordered. Most of all, she loved how he sought to find out how she felt about every plan he made, whenever he made one. And that he was willing to make amends when she didn’t like something. She felt guilty that she wasn’t equally collaborative when she took the lead. ‘Am I as right for him as he is for me?’ ‘Would he eventually understand me?’ – well, she knew that understanding a person is a pursuit which can take a lifetime. Even she was a puzzle to herself at times. And what if she couldn’t connect with his mind in the true sense, what if her instincts fooled her? ‘Marriage needs work, I am willing to do it’ – she told herself. ‘But, is he?’

But most of all, there were the what ifs that scared her to the core. ‘What if some day I see in his eyes what I see in Riya’s? What if I hear in myself the pain which says I no more believe in life, its joys and its possibilities? What if my skin pales with each cell screaming that it can’t hide the sorrow within any more?’

Riya controlled herself, and in a minute her tears went away. A few more moments later, she smiled at Aadya, followed by the same familiar, naughty giggle that they continuously shared at the back bench in college a few years ago, over little things that nobody else understood besides them. Aadya smiled back. Riya turned her eyes towards a handsome young man on another table, probably on a date with a pretty girl laughing in a flirtatious way. Riya gently whispered – ‘Bitch!’. And they both laughed louder than they ever did before. Aadya was so overwhelmed that moment that tears of joy trickled down her cheeks. And suddenly she noticed that Riya, at that very moment, looked totally transformed – as if they went back to the old days when life was care free and fun. Her eyes were glowing with pure happiness and her skin had the moist luster of a baby. And Aadya realized yet another truth about life – it always has its ways to offer happiness and hope.

And she decided to jump right in!

Originally written by me at Pagdandi during the Pune Writers’ Group meetup on 19th May 2019. It’s a short story based on one of the themes given on the spot – “Every emotion a human feels becomes written on their body. One day a woman is found with empty skin”.

Warm gas takes you higher... May be not.

There's no saying like this, but I would say it - "Warm gas takes you higher". This is true for a lot of people - especially the MBA sort. Although these days MBA is increasingly becoming a redundant degree, and MBA's are increasingly becoming redundant in organizations, a lot of people still spend loads of money to get the stamp of stupidity to get valued among the stupid peer group. I don't deny there is tremendous amount of learning packed in the rich curriculum of a B-School. But the irony is that out of all that can be learnt, very little is really of interest to anybody except the professor. And for those who do take active interest in learning, their worth is only in helping others pass exams in case the prof is too crazy about his shit. Coz the jobs don't need any of that. So even if you've learnt all the fancy stuff, you'll have to trash it to get something else into your head once you start working post the degree. And that something else is usually the kind of stuff you could have done better when you were younger and sharper, and had no fire in the ass to become a leader. Or the kind of stuff that anyone can do, but just that you have a degree and the role is made to require the degree, you sit there playing the role. It's all bizarre, but money has strange ways of finding the kind of people who deserve it. In other words, you need the degree to get that job. As the world is designed and run by human minds, some of which created these crazy degrees. And powerful people tend to pull up other people who share the same madness as they do. Powerful indeed depends on the limited environment and context. That's how networks of similar individuals get formed who together play the game if it is mutually beneficial.

Things are changing though, at least in the tech world, but the network phenomenon still has its traces. People with certain skills do get paid a lot, often many times more than MBAs. That may be coz a lot of these companies are owned by non-MBAs. So the network effect I mentioned may still be working to some extent. However, there's a much more prominent demand-supply factor at play here. And definitely warm gas can hardly take you very high here!